February 13, 2003 TO: Fausto Alvarado Dodero Minister of Justice of the Republic of Peru Scipión Llona 350, Miraflores Lima, Peru Via facsimile: + 51-1-422-3577 Dear Mr. Alvarado Dodero: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to inquire about the status of journalist Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, who was sentenced in 1994 to…
New York, February 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent separate letters today to Peru’s minister of justice, Fausto Alvarado Dodero, requesting information about the status of journalist Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, who was sentenced in 1994 to 20 years in prison on charges of collaborating with terrorists.…
New York, April 10, 2002—The editor of a fortnightly publication that criticized alleged corruption at a university in the southern city of Arequipa has received death threats, CPJ has learned. Mabel Cáceres Calderón, editor of El Búho, works in the afternoon at the engineering sciences library of the Universidad Nacional de San Agustín (UNSA). On…
Press freedom conditions improved markedly in Peru during 2001. The victory of centrist Alejandro Toledo, who beat leftist candidate Alan García in the June 3 runoff presidential elections, brought democracy back to Peru, a country that suffered 10 years of authoritarian rule under former president Alberto K. Fujimori.
HORACIO VERBITSKY is one of Argentina’s leading investigative journalists, and a columnist and press freedom activist. He has built his distinguished career by fearlessly exposing government corruption and battling restrictive press laws. A working journalist since 1960, Verbitsky’s relentless pursuit of a story has earned him his nickname el perro, or the dog. In January 1991, Verbitsky…
By Ann CooperIN THE COMMUNITY OF JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE CHRONICLED the past decade’s worst wars, the news last May was devastating. Two of the world’s most dedicated war correspondents, Kurt Schork of Reuters and Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora of The Associated Press, were killed in a rebel ambush in Sierra Leone, a country where…
BY EXPOSING CORRUPTION, POLITICAL INTRIGUE, and massive abuse of power, journalists in Peru helped bring down the regime of President Alberto K. Fujimori last year. Fujimori’s dramatic fall demonstrated that the Latin American press remains a key bulwark against leaders who continue to use subtle and not-so subtle means to control the flow of information.…
PERU’S INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS HELPED drive President Alberto K. Fujimori from power after forcing his once-mighty intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos into exile. Fujimori’s November departure led to the unshackling of the independent press, which had seriously suffered under a regime that tried to manipulate public information for a decade. President Fujimori used all resources at his…